TOY - Trainers Online for Youth
This is a reference for Joseph Teuma
The aim of this training was the provision of adequate skills and abilities related to the organisation of activities with young people to a small number of people from third-country nationals, over 18 years of age with refugee or subsidiary protection status. These activities were part of a 1 year project that aimed at promoting integration between young people and refugees or persons with subsidiary protection. The objectives included: training about the use of non formal education activities; how to work with young people with diverse cultural, social and political issues; how to plan activities for young people; the setting of a day programme with non-formal activities for young people including the planning, implementation and evaluation stages for continuous improvement.
All the participants in this training had a refugee status and were coming from Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia. There were other 2 persons that were co-ordinating the training and the overall project. These were one from Agenzija Zghazagh and the other from SOS Malta.
The method used during this training was ‘learning by doing’. The participants were involve in various games such as ‘ice breakers’, team building games in order to make a dynamic and motivated group and also games to get to know each other. Later the participants were proffered more hands on activities such as role-plays and photo language methods in order to learn skills in communication, in solving conflict, time management, self-expression, presentation skills and self-confidence. Games and video clips for intercultural learning were also included. There was also time for planning of the main activities to be used with young people during the project. These were rehearsed through very creative workshops. Material such as traditional African music instruments and dances were being prepared to be used during the workshops. A workshop with different styles of the African and European dinning was created so that these intercultural aspects can be disseminated with the young people. The aim of such a workshop was that to provide young people an opportunity where they can participate actively and concretely experience different ways of life and culture. Agenzija Zghazagh were inviting also young people from schools to apply and participate in such project http://www.agenzijazghazagh.gov.mt/Pages/829
These interactive workshops were also broadcasted thorugh one of TV stations during the news forecast. http://tvm.com.mt/news/african-taste-for-studnets/
These participants are now called Cultural Ambassadors. After this training, these Cultural Ambassadors managed, to organise creative workshops with young people coming from different schools. These interactive workshops left a very positive impact on the young people. Young people also made several questions to these Ambassadors much of these related to the cultural way of living especially in their respective countries.
I was the only trainer in this project. My role was that to train these people with methods and skills how to work with young people. Moreover I was also responsible to make these people aware of the ethics in youth work and also the most effective learning methods with young people.